Armed cops swoop on ex grave digger

Armed police closed the nearby roads while the drama was unfolding through the night

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Armed police surrounded the home of a former council grave digger on Monday night after he barricaded himself inside.

Stunned neighbours in the Clarinda Drive and Syme Road areas of Lochside were told to stay indoors for their own safety as police negotiators attempted to talk with Brian Ross.

The incident started around 5.30pm and finished when the 55-year-old was removed from the house, under a blanket, at around 11am yesterday.

Reports that Mr Ross’s family were being held hostage in the home were denied by police.

Mr Ross recently attended a preliminary hearing of an industrial tribunal in Glasgow after he claimed he was sacked for “telling the truth” about children’s bones and ashes being illegally exhumed by council workers.

One local who knows the Ross family said the drama had shocked the street. She said: “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Armed police, ambulances; it was unbelievable.

“The rubbish that was all over Facebook had grown arms and legs. What people don’t know they make up.

“I’m not surprised this has happened. Nobody should have to have seen and done the things Brian had to while he worked as a grave digger.

“Since he was sacked by the council, he’s been a completely changed man. It should never have got this far.”

Another added: “We are all concerned but we only heard from the police once in six hours. We were told to stay inside for our own safety. There’s pensioners around here and families with young children. We should have been given more information about what’s going on.”

The council declared Mr Ross incapable of working last April due to a stress-related disorder which he claims was caused by witnessing the remains of children being exhumed.

He launched an unfair dismissal case against the council but, if he loses the case, he could be left to foot the bill for the council’s legal costs running into thousands of pounds.

He told the Standard recently that he had been “abandoned by the union and Welfare Rights and forced to go it alone at the employment tribunal”.

He added: “Welfare Rights told me I didn’t stand a chance in court and urged me to accept an offer from the council to give me 10 years extra pension backdated until April.

“This has never been about money.

“It’s about the council not having proper policy and procedures in place relating to burial ground practices.

“The council want to cover up what they’ve been doing for years but the public deserve to know the truth.

“They are trying to gag me and keep me quiet but I won’t give up.

“Why would they be making me offers if they’d done everything right?

“I’ll defend myself at the employment tribunal.”

The authority’s chief executive Gavin Stevenson ordered an investigation in March, 2012, into claims that children’s remains had been illegally exhumed in council graveyards.

Then, grave diggers revealed that regulations protecting the remains of children had been ignored for years.

According to one worker, coffins were exhumed temporarily to make way for other family members being buried in the same plot.

But under Scottish law that should only be done after a warrant for exhumation is obtained from a sheriff.

Mr Ross reported the problem to managers numerous times since 2004.

That year, grave workers asked for guidance on the minimum depths of graves after becoming concerned that shallow depth graves were becoming increasingly more common.